


Heresy and Afternoon Tea

by HeavenlyKukuru



Series: Altered Paradigms / Chaos and Aether Sides [2]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII-2, Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Character Study, Crossover, Elezen Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Exposition, Final Fantasy XIV Lore, Friendship, Gen, Gridania (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29969040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeavenlyKukuru/pseuds/HeavenlyKukuru
Summary: A tea house in the middle of Gridania isn't really a suitable place for an adventurer to pick apart the nation's strict ways of governance, but Coco does that anyway. Her best friend joins her for the experience.
Series: Altered Paradigms / Chaos and Aether Sides [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2182278
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Heresy and Afternoon Tea

» Eorzea – The Black Shroud – Old Gridania : 25th Second Astral, 3:24pm «

Surveying his current location with as little movement as possible, Pahn'a Laroux observes the tea house's interior. A cursory inspection brings up nothing out of the ordinary and the atmosphere is one of quiet calmness. There are no signs of an impending assault from the locals, but there's still time for that. A slight smile curls up one corner of the Miq'ote's mouth with wry amusement at the thought of it happening. His companion's overly talkative mood makes that a very real possibility.

Seated on the opposite side of the table is his best friend and adventurer, Coco Delouix. She's half hidden behind a teacup cradled in both hands as she talks, wholly invested in her topic of conversation, which had mostly been one-sided whilst Pahn'a had ensured her safety. Covertly, of course. He watches steam rise idly from the hot tea, those strong colours of Coco's auburn hair and dark malachite eyes dulling only slightly through the vapour.

Pahn'a loves this Elezen woman like a big sister and he would do anything to protect her. It's just ironic that she's a paladin and normally too guarded to let her defences down like this, but it comforts him to know that she does from time to time. If that requires him to be some silent peacekeeper whilst she talks, so be it. It's a price he is all too eager to pay.

“If you think about it,” Coco is saying, momentarily stopping to take a sip of tea, “There have been incidents in the past where such seemingly random rules have been put into place. No-one ever questions when they rescinded or why, only that … what?”

The teacup lowers and the Elezen's eyes fix upon him, a slightly puzzled expression gracing her face.

“Oh nothing. I'm at once amused by your innocence and impressed by the boldness you're showing talking about this subject.”

Coco sighs and leans back into her chair. She deposits the teacup onto the table and returns to her previously abandoned sketchbook, picking up a pencil and beginning to draw once more.

“It's an important subject, Pan,” she offers in a sheepish voice.

“Yes, I'm all too aware,” Pahn'a says, watching the pencil lead conjure shapes upon the paper. “You just don't have to be sitting inside of the hornets' nest when you kick it. I admire your tenacity though, skirting the line between exile and acceptable discourse. We need to find you some adventuring work so that you're doing something other than just thinking.”

Coco glares at him through her eyelashes, not deigning to look up from the sketchbook, and he can almost hear the melodramatic sigh that so often accompanies her exasperation. Pahn'a smiles and allows himself a moment's rest until she starts talking again, which she invariably will. This woman doesn't let go of something when she's taken a bite out of it.

A man of quiet temperance himself, Pahn'a knows just how strong Coco's determination is – her powerful sense of justice and a strong moral compass drive a need to rescue everything and everyone around her, but even he finds it exhausting on occasion. Pahn'a lad long since deduced that not everyone could be saved and some definitely shouldn't be, no matter what. Such is life. However, this latest moral crusade of Coco's isn't likely to end well, from whichever direction she chooses to campaign it.

Ever a confusing concept for foreigners, the way Gridania works is that it's governed by the forest elementals' whims and those of the special few said to understand their whispers – the Hearers of Stillglade Fane. Most important decisions are deferred to the elementals themselves: when to hunt game and where, whether one has permission to fell trees to lay foundations for a village, if a plantation of crops is allowed, and so on. Since the elementals don't speak nor interact with people at all, it falls to the Hearers to relay those answers to the populace and maintain a so-called balance in the woods. In effect, Gridanians only do what the Conjurers' Guild tells them to, out of fear and adherence to tradition.

Coco, with her Sharlayan ethos and insatiable curiosity, had set her mind onto this particular subject and had spent the past few days consumed by it. She had landed upon a conclusion that would set the woods-fearing people of Gridania against her, and many violently so should they hear her deductions out loud. To them, it would be a direct contravention of the wood's will and that just wouldn't do. Though she's afforded some protection as an adventurer, she's still vulnerable to expulsion at the least.

This activity, whilst in a tea house run and inhabited by individuals of the forest nation itself, is potentially dangerous. Pahn'a casts his gaze around stealthily, paying special attention to all of the Miqo'te and Duskwight patrons seated at tables, watching for minute ear twitches and heads cocked in their direction. The advanced hearing capabilities of both groups could prove problematic, but the situation is in hand for now.

To many, it would appear reckless to allow Coco to pursue this matter so openly. Pahn'a though, so rarely gets to see his friend relax and be unguarded, too often she spends her life otherwise. Plus, the more time she's away from arrows, swords and streams of aspected aether pointed in her direction, the better. He can protect her here – something he can't do when she's on solo forays throughout Eorzea. Besides, it's good practice for his management skills and Free Company life sure had been prosaic lately. Wildly profitable? Yes. A thrilling existence? Not so much.

“What bothers me most,” Coco says, almost in a whisper now, “Is that everything is so heavily based on interpretation. The elementals themselves don't actually speak. They only react with violence to something that could threaten the Twelveswood or not at all, so how could one construe complex answers from that? You can't and so it's down to whatever the Hearers decide.”

“Holy authority”, Pahn'a offers vaguely, his attention drawn elsewhere. That dark-skinned man in the corner is acting suspiciously.

Coco glances up from her drawing and gives him a sardonic look. “Oh, very clever. White magic puns! Anyway, I think it's quite dangerous and I'm certain I'm not the only one to have noticed. The problem is, how do you control it?”

“You don't. And you're not. People get exiled all the time,” Pahn'a intones, noting the man's ear-twitch towards them.

“I suppose,” she says distractedly, touching the tip of her pencil to her lips. “But it's not as if living in the Shroud itself is a death sentence. People have always formed villages and settlements throughout the woods, existing in harmony with nature itself beyond the city walls. Even with the Hedge active that much was true. I suppose exile is more symbolic, shunned by Gridania and a target of the elementals' ire.” Coco pauses, frowning slightly. She appears on the verge of some revelatory conclusion. “What if … there are no more elementals? What if people are just doing what the Hearers want them to?”

At this point the man Pahn'a had marked turns around ever so slightly in his chair, his back still facing them but with deliberate action to the contrary now. A dark-skinned Keeper of the Moon just like Pahn'a himself, it appears he's interested in their conversation. From this distance and with Coco's now-reduced volume he'd have trouble hearing anything other than the odd word though. Still, it's a concern and for now Pahn'a decides to play it cool. He can react swiftly if needed.

“Do you remember that drama before the Calamity,” Coco continues on, “Where the Hearers decided that nothing from Thanalan was allowed into the forest? By itself, that made no sense but a new Hearer had risen up through the ranks. Their name–“

“Hearer Bramblewood,” Pahn'a interjects. “Yes, an age of hardship defined by its lack of cactuar fruit vodka. Oh, I remember.”

“You were a lot less fun in those days!” Coco laughs with easy amusement, eliciting a smile from her friend. She places the pencil down and props herself up on both elbows, choosing a small sandwich from the platter atop the table and taking a careful bite. There on the sketchbook lies a beautiful drawing of the tea house and its various patronage, quietly partaking in their own discussions with their own afternoon tea and sandwiches.

Coco's artistic talent had always impressed Pahn'a, though he had continually neglected to tell her that. She had a way of capturing still-life in charcoal and lead strokes that required no contextual explanation at all. Whatever she drew just spoke for itself, chronicling her travels as an adventurer throughout the realm. All Pahn'a can draw are stick figures, and poorly at that.

“Anyway,” she says and finishes off the sandwich, “I heard that particular Hearer interpreted, and I do use that term lightly, such a command from the elementals because she had a rather stormy romance with an Ul'dahn merchant. He had a fling with her sister, I hear! As such, everything and everyone of Thanalan origin was branded off-limits after that point.”

“I never pegged you as a gossip,” Pahn'a says from behind a smirk. His eyes flick from his friend and back towards the other man, suspiciously rigid in his seat. “Don't tell me. You're changing career and joining the Raven as their new headline gossip-monger.”

Coco scoffs as she pours more tea into each of their cups. “Hardly. But it does have a serious overtone though. The elementals don't care about such things, but if a Hearer can claim that's what they were told, where does it end? An alarming prospect should it get out of control and who is there to prevent that happening? The Elder Seedseer I suppose, but we'll never know for sure.”

Now, the man Pahn'a had been watching rises from his chair abruptly and starts towards them, his face a poor imitation of an innocent patron who had heard nothing inflammatory. His eyes, crimson like glittering rubies, lock onto Coco and Pahn'a slides a hand down to the knife strapped to his thigh, poised should something bad happen. Coco though, detects the atmosphere for herself and instantly goes into defence mode. The shift is palpable, almost changing the air temperature around them.

At the end of his overconfident swagger towards their table, the man stops and looks around, this way and that. It's almost comical as Pahn'a beholds the affected air of toughness that's about as intimidating as a chocobo chick. The stranger leans over, placing both palms flat down onto the tablecloth and focuses all of his attention onto the Elezen, shutting Pahn'a out. That action alone proves to be the indication that he isn't a threat at all. Anyone with an onze of sense wouldn't turn their back on one of Gridania's most renowned and deadly archers, even if he is sitting in a tea house having afternoon tea.

“Should warn yer miss,” the man says in a gruff tone, “Ain't alone in your line of thinkin' but careful where yer speak it. Most e'eryone in this city has their 'ead stuffed wiv cotton wool, but some of 'em'll take offence personally, yer know.” He pauses to look around, again in an almost theatrical way that is anything but discreet. “Should yer feel obliged to do summat about it, the 'earers and their fake whispers, come find us. Your friend 'ere knows where.”

And with that the man strides off out of the tea house. The tense atmosphere softens back into habitual calmness as if it had never existed. Pahn'a eases, waving off a hand signal under the table to one of his Free Company members seated laterally away from them. Where Coco's safety is concerned he doesn't allow any shortcuts and Mallory had been there as an added layer of protection. She stands up, offers a curt nod and heads off after the man to make sure there are no unintended consequences.

Apparently unaware, Coco herself relaxes, the stiffened set of her shoulders easing into a more normal configuration. “Well, I guess that's that. Can't be consorting with poachers now, can I?”

Pahn'a smiles, knowing she'd be clever enough to figure that out. “No, though I doubt it'll curb your curiosity at all.”

The Elezen shrugs, uncurling her fingers from the sword hilt at her waist and moving them back onto to the teacup. She rubs her thumb against the handle, seemingly nervous, and opens her mouth to talk but it closes again without a sound. 

“Speaking of curiosity, I … has anything changed? Is he ... any better? Or worse?” she says brokenly, deliberately staring down into the tablecloth. Her friend shakes his head once, his bright yellow eyes fixed upon her. He knows what this is about already.

“The things I saw in that Echo vision, Pan. They … they weren't of this world.” Coco pauses to inhale deeply. Her next words are spoken with a quiet tremble. “If we lose him, then I can't help but think we've lost something of great importance.”

Pahn'a regards his friend – this woman who is normally a bastion of defensiveness and careful action. He has known her a long time and has every one of her idiosyncrasies down to a tee. Any deviation from Coco's normal operating parameters tells him something, and this particular quandary has the markings of an event he won't be able to protect her from. It'll turn out to be far too powerful a draw for her rapacious curiosity for him to ever have a hope of severing. No, he can only watch from afar in this.

“Great importance, huh,” he says with deliberate inflection. Coco looks at him, flustered and open-mouthed. Her lovely green eyes widen and tell Pahn'a all he needs to know without her having to make a single sound. He cherishes these rare moments where she's just herself – a complicated but adorable tangle of intellectualism and all-too-puissant swordswoman.

A storm lies ahead on the proverbial horizon of their friendship, though. He can see this even now. When that silver-haired man eventually wakes from his coma – and Pahn'a knows with absolute certainty that he will, because Osha is just too good at her job and the fates rejoice at taxing him – it will be interesting to see how events play out. Perhaps he could finally retire as Coco's silent protector or perhaps he'd have to work doubly hard to keep her out of trouble. Only time would tell.

Whatever the outcome, Pahn'a hopes it doesn't end up in yet another disappointment – like the last one who's currently rotting in a ditch somewhere with his throat slashed. When it comes to Coco's protection, there are no shortcuts.

**Author's Note:**

> Would love to hear any comments and, if you have any questions, those too. Thank you for reading.


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